Reform withdrew its election contract a few weeks after the 2024 election describing it an unworkable and more of a philosophy that policy . It removed the contract from its website but it has now reappeared under the heading of Policy Documents with no rider that it was ever withdrawn.
However on 5 September 2025, BBC reported:
Reform UK may need to rethink its pledge to deliver £90bn of tax cuts, the party's deputy leader Richard Tice has suggested.
The Reform UK manifesto published ahead of last year's general election made commitments to slash income tax in particular, as well as large spending pledges on defence. However, Tice told the BBC: "A manifesto in July 2024 is not appropriate for a manifesto or contract whenever the next general election is.”
One of their main policy promises, and the one I hear given most often as the second reason people support Reform, is the one yo increase the tax personal allowance to £20,000.
The contract states:
Lift the income tax starting threshold to £20k to save the lowest paid £1,500 per year. This takes 7 million of the least well-off out of Income Tax to make work pay and get people off benefits.
This is misleading. While those who work full time (40 hours pw) on adult minimum wage, either £10 per hour for those age 18-20 or £12.21 for people age 21, would save around £1,500 a year in tax they would be still be entitled to benefits.
At the moment, someone earning £25,396 per year (min wage £12.21 x 40 hours x 52 weeks), paying 5% into a workplace pension scheme and paying £1,000 per month rent would (according to the turn2us calculator), be entitled to Universal Credit of £254 per month, a mix of the standard allowance and housing benefit. Giving them a tax cut would mean they would still be getting some UC.
Clearly, the issue here is the UK’s low wage economy, that people working full time are still in need of supplementary benefits.
An IPPR analysis of the proposed tax cuts show that they would make minimal difference to the pockets of the 20% of poorest households while benefiting the 20% richest households far more:
www.ippr.org/media-office/analysis-of-reforms-tax-plans
The contract also says Reform would, in the first 100 days of office, introduce an Employer Immigration Tax raising the NI rate to 20% for an employer who employed foreign nationals (excluding health and care staff).
Reform claim it would raise 20 billion to pay for apprenticeships for young Britons. They would not be able to do that without wider legislative change on how NIC is used.
NIC can only be used to fund the NHS (what Labour's £25 billion increase in employers NIC was earmarked for) and to pay for contributory benefits - 95% of which is the State Pension.
Legislative changes to what NIC can be used for would be potentially dangerous in the hands of a government seeking to reduce NHS funding and contributory benefits.
In addition, an Employer Immigration Tax would fall foul of the Equality Act 2010, if an employer was seen to be discriminating on the grounds of race which includes: colour, nationality, and ethnic or national origins.
An immigration tax would deter employers from engaging the best person for the job and therefore hamper performance and productivity.
Wouldn’t customers and service users want to know that a provider is employing the best people not simply those who are cheaper for the organisation to employ?
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